Saturday Night Live’s 50th anniversary special marked the final episode for a key player behind the scenes: longtime standards and practices executive Betzy Torres.
Torres’ departure was mentioned by former SNL cast member Taran Killam in an interview on The Rich Eisen Show yesterday.
“I think [SNL50] was a last hurrah for a lot of people behind the scenes,” Killam told Eisen. “An example is Betzy Torres, who has been the standards and practices representative for SNL for so many years. This was her final show. It was her last chance to say ‘You can’t say douche-rag on the air.’”
Torres features in Peacock’s new documentary anthology series SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night, in the episode “Written By: Inside the SNL Writers Room.”
“As the SNL standards executive, I need to review content for everything—what’s kind of problematic, what seems over the top,” she explains in the documentary. “I try to make sure that we’re not having, like, twenty b*tches or a**es in one show.”
“Some writers don’t want to change what they’ve written, and some of them are pissed off at me,” she adds. “But it’s not personal, it’s professional.”
“Her job is to kind of have a dirty mind, where it’s looking for that stuff, and sometimes she’ll find it when it’s not there,” co-head writer Streeter Seidell says of Torres in the film.
Torres’s career in standards began in 1997, after transitioning from a segment producer role at NBC’s Weekend Today. She climbed the ranks of standards and practices within NBCUniversal for late night and primetime shows, eventually becoming Vice President of Program Standards for Late Night, Specials & Live Events in 2008. Over the years, she has worked on shows like Late Night with Conan O’Brien, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, 30 Rock, and Maya & Marty.
Naturally, Torres has factored into many writers’ and cast members’ behind-the-scenes stories over the years. (Former writer Harper Steele recalled a time she ran afoul of the standards exec during an appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers last week.)
“I think we have a good working relationship,” Seidell says of Torres in Beyond Saturday Night. “As good as people who yell at each other sometimes can have.”
